How To Find Time To Exercise

How often have you skipped a workout, or put off starting an exercise program because you think you don’t have time? How can you find time to exercise when there’s always so much going on?

We totally get it — work, family, social life, and other obligations can drag your exercise needs towards the bottom of your priority list.

Many of us work 10 hours per day (or more!), carry a ton of stress, and regularly miss out on family time and sleep as is. How can you find time to exercise around all that?

Juggling everything, including your own exercise needs, is a difficult balancing act. But you can use the tips below to find time to exercise, no matter what your days are like:

How To Find Time To Exercise

1. Watch Out For The All-or-Nothing Trap

Many people get overwhelmed with the idea of how much time they think working out will take. It’s a convenient excuse to tell yourself “Well, if I can’t work out 3 or 4 days a week, why bother?”

Any exercise is better than no exercise. You do have more choices than:

1) Go to the gym every day
or
2) Do nothing

You may not be able to schedule more than 1 or 2 training sessions in any given week. And that’s fine. At the end of a year, even that modest exercise schedule gives you the benefits of 50-100 workouts!

Plus, you’d be surprised how much work you can get done in a short, half-hour exercise session!

A good workout doesn’t have to take a long time.

And you don’t have to work out 5 days a week to see benefits!

2. Schedule Exercise

If you want to find time to exercise, you have to make time to exercise. That means putting a workout on your schedule. If you don’t set aside time to exercise in your calendar, you’ll find something else to do.

One of the benefits of working out with a personal trainer is the accountability aspect. If you have an appointment scheduled, you’re not likely to cancel or skip.

Even if you don’t use a personal trainer (why aren’t you?), you should schedule an exercise session in your calendar.

Start with one — set aside 30 minutes for some kind of exercise. A weightlifting circuit, a session on the elliptical trainer, or even a walk around the neighborhood — whatever works for you.

Once you get a few successful workouts under your belt, you’ll be motivated to continue. Or maybe even motivated enough to schedule more than one next week!

Speaking of motivation…

3. Exercise Motivation

Finding time to exercise is much easier if you’re motivated by things that are truly important to you.

Why do you have a desire to work out?

Do you want to lose weight? Why?

Do you want more energy?

Do you want to feel better and look better?

Are you motivated by health reasons?

Are you afraid if you don’t get stronger, you won’t be able to keep up with the grandkids? Or that you’ll start to lose the ability to do the activities that you love?

Whatever your motivation to exercise, if you keep that in mind you will have an easier time finding time to exercise regularly.

Another great exercise motivation tool is thinking about how you will feel after your workout is finished.

Often, just getting into the gym is the hardest part. The front door is the toughest set of the workout!

Once you’re there and you start actually exercising, you feel great. Tired, but great. After you finish your workout, you’re always glad you did it. And you should be proud — you’ve done something great for yourself!

So if you’re feeling unmotivated to get to the gym, take a moment to think about how great you’ll feel when you’re done. That should get you in the door!

4. Reality Check How You Actually Use Your Time

“I don’t have time to exercise” may seem valid at first.
But if you take a moment to do a reality check on how much time you spend, say, watching TV or surfing facebook, you can probably take some of that time to exercise instead.

There’s nothing wrong with leisure time, but if you’re using “no time” as an excuse for not exercising, I am challenging you to use a little bit of your leisure time for exercise! You’ll be glad you did.

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